1. Field of the Invention
A hand operated notching tool and method produces smooth edged notches closely abutting an angled wall, which is especially useful in the siding industry.
2. Background of the Prior Art
In the sheet metal working industry, it is often desirable to produce notches in sheet metal for various purposes. For example, in the siding industry, channel shaped pieces are notched at their ends so that they may be joined with their ends together at comers where pieces meet at right angles. This allows a horizontal element and a vertical element to be joined by interengaging and interlocking them without necessarily using fasteners. Such pieces may be used around windows and doors of a building which is being covered in metal siding. Metals, such as aluminum or steel, are used in relatively thin gauges which can be cut with ordinary tin shears.
In the conventional situation, a channel shaped piece or a "J"-shaped channel is altered by making four cuts with a pair of tin shears in order to produce a flap at the end of the piece. The cuts are made in pairs to produce V-shaped cutouts next to the channel legs at the end of a channel shaped piece. The flap between the V-shaped cutouts can then be bent back upon the material or cut off to cream an opening in the end of one piece which, for sake of example, might be a vertical piece. A mating horizontal piece is similarly altered by making four cuts with tin shears to cut out triangular areas to create another flap which can be bent back also. This creates an opening at the end of the "web" of the channels whereby the walls of the channel legs can be interengaged. For example, the outside wall of a horizontal piece can be lying against the inside wall of a vertical piece and the inside of the other wall of the horizontal piece lying against the outside wall of the vertical piece.
The use of tin shears to make these V-shaped cutout notches in the central web at the ends of channel shaped pieces is time consuming and produces rough, irregular edges which often do not fit properly together. They often require additional curing and trying in order to make the ends fit. Depending upon the size of the channels, it is sometimes necessary to make more than four cutting operations in order to produce appropriately sized V-shaped notches. The shears' thick blades do not permit conveniently making the cuts closely abutting along the angled walls of the channel legs. These shears produce rough, irregular edges which are extremely sharp and dangerous to the workmen. Consequently, it would be desired to have a tool and method which will produce notches abutting the wall of the leg of an angled piece or channel, the cutout notches having smooth edges sheared in a uniform manner time after time.